Colombia Rejects a Paramilitary Surrender Offer and Sets a Week’s Deadline
COLOMBIA · SECURITY
Key Facts
- —The offer Alias Pinocho, leader of the Autodefensas Conquistadores de la Sierra Nevada, offered to surrender.
- —The trigger The death of a rival commander known as Bendito Menor.
- —The answer There will be no shortcuts, privileges or deals, from the justice ministry.
- —The addition The defence ministry said there would be no impunity and no permissiveness.
- —The deadline President De la Espriella gave him one week to surrender unconditionally.
- —The pattern It follows the revocation of the negotiating delegations to the ELN and the Clan del Golfo on 9 September.
A paramilitary commander offered to come in. Colombia’s government told him there is nothing to discuss and gave him a week.
The leader of an armed group in the Sierra Nevada offered to hand himself in after a rival commander was killed. The government answered that there would be no negotiation.
Who Is Involved
Alias Pinocho leads the Autodefensas Conquistadores de la Sierra Nevada, the ACSN, one of the armed groups operating in the Caribbean foothills of northern Colombia.
His offer followed the death of a rival commander known as Bendito Menor. A leadership death inside or adjacent to an armed structure frequently precedes a surrender offer, because it changes the calculation of who is safe.
The Government’s Answer
The justice ministry’s response was reported across Colombian outlets in the same words: no habrá atajos, privilegios ni acuerdos. There will be no shortcuts, privileges or deals.
The defence ministry added that there would be no impunity and no permissiveness.
President Abelardo De la Espriella went further and gave Pinocho one week to surrender unconditionally.
An unconditional surrender under a deadline is not a negotiation. It is an instruction with a date attached, and it is the opposite of the framework the previous government operated.
Why This Is Not Paz Total
Gustavo Petro’s security policy rested on simultaneous negotiation with armed and criminal structures, with legal architecture built for each. Law 2272 of 2022 extended the peace framework beyond politically motivated groups to criminal organisations.
That framework is being dismantled. On 9 September De la Espriella revoked the government delegations to the ELN and the Clan del Golfo and ordered the closure of the location zone in Valle del Guamúez, Putumayo, effective 30 September.
A surrender offer arriving into that environment has nowhere to land. The legal routes that would have processed it are being closed as it arrives.
Who the ACSN Are
The Autodefensas Conquistadores de la Sierra Nevada emerged from the fragments of the paramilitary structures that demobilised between 2003 and 2006, in the mountains and foothills behind Santa Marta.
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is unusual terrain for this. It rises from the Caribbean coast to more than five thousand metres within fifty kilometres, it holds four indigenous peoples with their own governance, and it sits beside the tourism economy of Santa Marta and Tayrona.
Groups operating there live off extortion, land control and the corridors that move cocaine to the coast. They are criminal structures with a paramilitary lineage rather than insurgencies, which is precisely the category Law 2272 of 2022 was written to accommodate.
The Question It Leaves
A commander who cannot negotiate and will not be given terms has two remaining options, and one of them is to keep fighting.
Colombia has run this experiment before. The 2003 to 2006 demobilisation of the AUC was built on negotiated terms and produced the Justice and Peace framework, and its critics argue it delivered impunity. The absence of terms produces a different problem rather than no problem.
What the coming week establishes is whether Pinocho surrenders on those terms or disappears back into the Sierra Nevada. The answer will shape how the next offer is made.
More: Colombia news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who offered to surrender?
Alias Pinocho, leader of the Autodefensas Conquistadores de la Sierra Nevada.
What prompted it?
The death of a rival commander known as Bendito Menor.
What did the government say?
The justice ministry said there would be no shortcuts, privileges or deals. The defence ministry added no impunity and no permissiveness.
Is there a deadline?
Yes. President De la Espriella gave him one week to surrender unconditionally.
How does this fit the wider policy?
It follows the revocation of the ELN and Clan del Golfo negotiating delegations on 9 September and the closure of the Putumayo location zone.
Sources: El Tiempo, El Pais, Semana, Infobae, Vanguardia, El Colombiano.
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